I have been battling away and have managed to lose 9 1/2 pounds, won't know the exact amount until I weigh in on Saturday,,,,,, my question is,, when exactly do I move to owl? I currently weigh 10st 7lb ( hopefully this may be down a pound or so by saturday ) and my goal weight is 9st 7. Any advice would be greatly appreciated

All depends on how fast you want to lose weight plus any timelines you have set. Owl is a critical part of making this a way of life and maintaining so good plan to go ahead now and move slowly to goal. If you stick to induction for weightloss then make sure you still plan to spend the proper time on owl later. Finally many people find they can actually lose more on owl than extended induction - gives the body a kick making the change!

In the books it says that ideally Induction should be for two weeks. If you are losing weight during that time then you move into OWL (phase 2) permanently and stay with it until you are 5-10 pounds from goal, at which time you switch to Pre-Maintenance (phase 3). Dr. Atkins actually says that anyone staying in Induction for long periods is 'not doing Atkins'. LOL.

However many of us prolong Induction and for some that can be a bad thing. Atkins is designed to remove most carbs from the system and then, gradually and in carefully-chosen categories, add them back. You go into OWL by adding 5 extra carbs per day for a week or two. You then add another 5 a day, and so on, until you stop losing weight for four weeks or more. At that point you scale the carbs back to where you were still losing, and stick with that.

Since everyone is different it is impossible to generalise. The important thing is that extra carbs are added back slowly. On The Atkins Community site, and in the books, you will find the Atkins pyramid which shows the foods that should be added back at the different stages. We are cautioned to follow the advice and only eat from the correct 'rung' of the pyramid, working our way up.

Whether anyone actually does this to the letter I am not sure but the Americans are very firm on this point! Also most of us stay on 20g carbs a day cos we are scared to go higher and possibly stop losing weight.

You can stay on Induction indefinitely but Atkins experts would advise against it because, surprisingly, it can slow down losses! ha ha. Hope this helps a bit.

Losing the weight is winning the battle. Keeping it off is winning the war.

Girlygirl,,, I am indeed terrified from moving from the induction phase for fear of putting weight on!! Ha. I'm planning on moving up from Monday however I'm a little confused by the entire thing ( yeah I'm dumb!! ) I guess it's just trial and error!

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